Chichakli kept high profile on internet

RICHARD Chichakli may have been an international fugitive, but he was easy to find on the internet and more than happy to chat with reporters and supporters.

Chichakli, also known by the alias Robert Cunning, is accused of being the chief financial manager of notorious Russian weapons trafficker Viktor "The Merchant of Death" Bout, and seven years ago, after SWAT teams raided Chichakli's home in Texas, the accountant fled.

It was thought Syrian-born Chichakli was hiding in Russia, safe from New York-based US government prosecutors.

But Chichakli was half a world away, working as a cleaner in Melbourne.

His secret life in Australia was exposed earlier this month, authorities say, when he applied for a job as an armed guard with Victoria Police and if successful, could have worked as a protective services officer guarding government buildings such as Parliament House, railway stations and courthouses.

Chichakli is behind bars in Melbourne ahead of a February 5 bail hearing, while US authorities plan to extradite him to New York to face nine charges, including money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in the US federal prison system.

"Thanks to the co-operative efforts of all of our law enforcement partners, both here and abroad, Chichakli has finally been apprehended and will now face justice," the top federal prosecutor for the southern district of New York, US Attorney Preet Bharara, said after Australian authorities announced they had captured Chichakli.

He may have fled what appeared to be a typical American family life as a "soccer dad" in a middle-class Texas suburb in 2005, but Chichakli, 53, was anything but quiet.

His location was secret, but his message was not.

Anyone wishing to read his thoughts or contact him just had to log on to www.chichakli.com.

"Richard is ready to answer your questions regarding this matter," the site's "contact" page tells viewers, with reporters and supporters taking up the opportunity to chat with Chichakli.

To watch him argue his innocence, it was just a matter of logging on to YouTube and typing in his name to see numerous videos of Chichakli, dressed in a business shirt and tie, methodically pleading his case.

If Chichakli, who is married and has two children, is to be believed, he was never the chief financial manager of Bout's global arms trafficking business and any dealings he had with the Russian was before 2004 - the year the United Nations Security Council placed Bout and Chichakli on an asset freeze list and restricted their travel.

The US indictment against Chichakli tells a different story.

It paints Chichakli as Bout's chief financial manager, with his responsibilities including "directing the accounting, financial and reporting activities, including public reporting, auditing and overall responsibility for the financial systems".

Bout's master plan of buying up a fleet of transport planes and flying into war zones, landing on jungle airstrips and offloading tonnes of weapons to guerrilla armies or forces loyal to dictators, made him a wealthy man, but also the target of authorities across the world, including the United Nations Security Council.

Bout, whose story inspired the 2005 film Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage, was accused in Chichakli's indictment of selling or brokering arms that "helped fuel conflicts and support regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan".

In Liberia, Bout kept warlord-turned president Charles Taylor and the Sierra Leone rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front, armed as they fuelled the Sierra Leone civil war.

Taylor, who was sentenced to 50 years' prison for terrorism, murder, rape, enslavement and conscripting children under the age of 15, paid Bout in diamonds "and other valuable commodities acquired illegally by Taylor's associates and the RUF", the indictment against Chichakli states.

Bout is also behind bars, serving a 25-year sentence in an Illinois federal prison.

Chichakli, who is believed to have used a fake passport to enter Australia and who went by the name of Jehad Almustafa, became unstuck when a fingerprint and background check for his protective services job produced some irregularities.

Soon after Australian and US authorities identified him as Chichakli.

"The international law enforcement community has long recognised Richard Chichakli as a key criminal facilitator in Viktor Bout's global weapons trafficking regime and his arrest means the world is safer and more secure," Michele Leonhart, the administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said.

"Bout merged drug cartels with terrorist enablers, and his close associate, Chichakli, worked to ensure they could ship weapons and conduct illicit business around the world.

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